


DVD Commentary for i'm gonna be right by your side chapter 3

by qwertynerd97 (Daffidill23)



Series: Dark of the Knight 'verse [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: DVD Commentary Challenge, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:29:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22568296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daffidill23/pseuds/qwertynerd97
Summary: A DVD commentary of some of my thoughts while writing Chapter 3 of i'm gonna be right by your side no matter what.  The commentary provides more insight into what some of the auxiliary characters were thinking (since 3rd person limited doesn't always give me the details that I find neat), and allows me to snark at my own writing.
Series: Dark of the Knight 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623865
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119





	DVD Commentary for i'm gonna be right by your side chapter 3

The day before Damian’s 10th birthday, his entire world fell down around him. It started early in the morning when he went to spar with his sword-fighting trainer. Instead of the usual spar, rough, but not life-threatening, the trainer came at Damian with the full fury of a trained warrior. Damian held his own for a significant amount of time, but eventually, a lucky swipe disarmed him. His trainer swooped down and stabbed him straight through the heart, and Damian passed out immediately.

**_[So I have absolutely no idea why Talia decided to send Damian to Gotham in canon, and comics tend to kind of be chaotic anyway, so instead of trying to track down one particular canon that would match up with the emotional beats I wanted to hit, I decided to just make one up. In this ‘verse, a couple members of the League of Assassins plotted and attempted a coup against Ra’s. Obviously, if you are going to attempt to murder/overthrow an immortal assassin, its probably a good idea to murder his heir along the way]_ **

Damian came back to consciousness underwater, with fluid filling his lungs. He coughed once, twice, and then flailed his way to the surface. When he broke the surface, he immediately recognized it as the Lazurus Pit, with Talia hovering by the side. He pulled himself out and took the towel and clothes that Talia handed him. As he dried and dressed, Talia filled him in on the attempted coup that was occurring.

“So I am sending you to live with your father, while I deal with this insubordination,” she instructed. “You may as well take your place as his heir while you are there, so my new protege will follow you to Gotham as soon as I can spare him.”

Damian swallowed back his protests and nodded. A short while later, his bags were packed and he was on a flight bound for America. Talia had filled him in on the identity of his father (Both the Bruce Wayne and Batman identities), and he had a whole dossier on the Wayne family. But before he did anything else, he wanted to write to Marinette, to let her be a bright spot of sunshine in the turmoil of his life. He pulled out a marker from his bag and tried to respond to her latest message (a fairly innocuous story about her parent’s bakery), but the ink simply rolled off the surface of his arm, like water off a duck’s back. 

**_[In order to keep identites secret and tensions high, Damian absolutely couldn’t have a support system while he’s going through the transition between the League of Assassins and Gotham (because Marinette is good at dealing with emotions, and would resolve some of the issues before they built up). I figured that the Pit has a bunch of weird side-effects, which in this ‘verse include temporary (~12hr) invulnerability. Invulnerability would prevent the ink from sinking into skin, and therefore prevent soulmate communication. (Yes this does bring up interesting questions about the Super family and soulmates, which I may or may not address)]_ **

Though he tried a few more times, and with various pens that he borrowed from other passengers and flight attendants, Damian couldn’t get anything to sink into his skin. He resigned himself to isolation and dug into the dossier to ignore the strange catch that he felt in his throat. Perhaps the effect would wear off in a day or two.

By the time the plane landed, Damian was in a foul mood but was fully informed about Bruce Wayne and his … wards. He knew how to handle Dick Grayson (Nightwing), and plotted out potential strategies to remove the current Robin, Tim Drake. He’d even figured out the connection between his mother’s protege and the dead Robin, Jason Todd. Damian was the most concerned about the Batgirls, particularly Oracle, but they appeared to be out of Gotham at the moment, and it would not be hard to establish himself before they returned.

**_[There are just so many variables to keep track of with the Batfamily, and I needed Damian free from Oracle’s surveillance for the first bit of his stay in Gotham, so I sent all the Batgirls on a space mission, for fun and profit. No I don’t know exactly what they were doing out there, but maybe they were having a No-Boys-Allowed adventure with Starfire]_ **

Since the sun had already set by the time he left the airport, Damian planned to grab a room somewhere that would not ask questions, but his plans quickly changed when he spotted the Batmobile, parked in an alley while the bats patrolled. With his decade of training, it was the work of moments to break into the car and then reset the alarms. Now he only had to wait for Batman’s return. Unfortunately, it had been a very long day, and Damian was, no matter how well trained, just a 10-year-old boy. With nothing to do but wait, he could not keep from drifting off to sleep.

Though most children sleep heavily, children raised by assassins are far more aware of their surroundings. When a dark shadow thudded down onto the hood of the Batmobile, Damian was awake in an instant. Damian stared at the shadow for a long moment, seeing his Father in person for the first time. Then he slowly opened the door of the Batmobile and greeted the Dark Knight of Gotham.

“Hello Father,” he said solemnly. When Batman failed to reply, he took a deep breath and carried on. “Mother sent me to live with you while she deals with an irritating coup. It has been an awfully long day, do plan to patrol for much longer?” When Batman simply continued to stare at him, he shut the Batmobile door once more and slumped against the seat as if tired.

Batman spoke a few words into his earpiece, words Damian could not hear from inside the Batmobile. Moments later, after clearly receiving some sort of answer, he swung down off the hood of the Batmobile and opened the driverside door. Damian feigned sleepiness, blinking his eyes slowly, but fingering the knives in his pocket just in case. Batman made no moves towards Damian, though, he simply started the Batmobile up and drove off.

**_[Damian, tracking down Batman in the middle of the night: Hello Father. Mother sent me to live with you while she deals with a coup_ **

**_Bruce Wayne: Numbers and math meme_ **

**_Bruce Wayne: Adult life is already so goddamn weird]_ **

Damian feigned sleep throughout the ride, carefully blinking drowsiness into his eyes when the Batmobile pulled into the Batcave. Nightwing and Robin were already there, alert and waiting. Damian rubbed at his eyes, careful to act like a normal child waking up. He grabbed his duffle bag and stepped out of the Batmobile, heading towards the vigilantes. 

**_[The Batfamily is definitely wary that this could be a trap, but Bruce has never met a small lost child that he doesn’t want to adopt, so the Robins will be extra suspicious for him]_ **

“Dick, Tim” he greeted, nodding at Nightwing and Robin, letting a fake yawn slip through before turning back to Batman, who had come up behind him. 

Damian tried to hide a flinch (the last time he was this close to an adult with combat skills, he was literally murdered) but did not completely succeed. Batman crouched down until he was at eye level with Damian.

“If you know their names,” he said, voice clearly trying to be gentle, but laced with steel, “then I’m sure you know mine as well.”

Damian nodded. “Bruce Wayne.”

“And your mother?”

“Talia Al Ghul”

This time Batman was the one to flinch, in time with a quick gasp from Robin. Batman recovered quickly and tilted his head at Nightwing. The blue-caped hero stepped away, and then returned in moments with a kit that was clearly used to draw blood. Before Batman could say anything, Damian held out his right arm, exposing an easy-to-hit vein. Batman took a deep, stuttering breath, and then let it out as a sigh.

“I’m going to run a DNA test tonight,” he explained, as he quickly drew a vial of blood from Damian’s arm. “Dick will find you a room to sleep in, and we can figure out what’s going on tomorrow.” 

**_[Damian, blindly causing chaos when he arrives in Gotham: Marinette is like 100% of my impulse control, so….]_ **

Damian shook his arm as the needle was removed, and accepted the offered bandaid. Nightwing tugged off his cowl and headed for a set of stairs deeper in the cave, and Damian followed without a word. At the top of the steps, a hidden doorway swung open into a manor hallway, and from there it was only a few twists and turns before Dick opened the door of a bedroom. Damian walked in and closed the door, flopping onto the bed without so much as a word of thanks.

With the watchful eyes of the bats no longer looming, Damian let out a deep sigh. He curled around himself as though sleeping, shielding his arms from any potential cameras, before rolling his sleeve up and reading over the notes his soulmate had left him. The bakery story from earlier in the day was still there, along with a few new drawings that he traced reverently. He certainly wasn’t safe enough to try to write to her; there was no telling how his Father felt about soulmates. He fell asleep in moments, curled around himself and clutching the knife in his pocket.

**_[Damian knows that his life growing up in the League of Assassins is unusual, but he doesn’t know exactly what parts are different from the norm. In his mind, the safest thing to do when confronted with unusual circumstances is to continue following all the established rules, and figure out the new ones as he goes]_ **

The next morning, Damian woke to the first dregs of sunlight streaming in through the window. Still wary of observation, he ran through a simplified workout routine before Bruce’s younger ward came to bring him down to breakfast. As they entered the kitchen, Damian could hear voices talking, but when he entered the conversation stopped.

Dick and Bruce, in their civilian attire, turned away from a fourth man (likely the butler, Alfred), to look at Damian. Their gaze was far less suspicious than the night before, and although Bruce was clearly still wary, Dick looked far more welcoming. The butler fussed around Tim, handing-off a cup of coffee, and encouraged Damian to take a seat at the kitchen table and eat.

Once seated, Damian prepared himself for an onslaught of questions, ready to obfusticate or outright deny any knowledge of the League’s plans. And though his Father did ask questions all throughout breakfast, none of them seemed particularly strategic. Instead, they were more personal questions, like what his name was, and when he was born, and what he enjoyed doing.

As breakfast ended, though, Damian set his confusion aside. His Father has indicated that he would be out all day “sorting out Damian’s paperwork”, and told Damian he had the run of the Manor, and to “ask Alfred if you need anything.” Dick was headed out to work, and Tim, of course, had school. Damian figured that he would have plenty of time to try writing to his soulmate, without being observed.

Unfortunately, having the run of the Manor did not seem to mean that he would be left alone. Alfred seemed to have a never-ending list of things to do, all of which were conveniently in the same room as Damian. And once Tim came back from school, he hovered over Damian as well. Damian wasn’t even left alone when the Bats went patrolling, as only two went out each night.

**_[Just because Bruce wants to adopt every kid he comes across doesn’t mean he won’t take appropriate precautions. The Bats are concerned that this kid, the self-admitted son of Talia al Ghul, might Do Espionage if unsupervised, so they make sure someone always has eyes on him. Damian never even contemplated espionage, he’s just concerned about sneaking a message to his soulmate.]_ **

It took almost a week before Damian managed to catch a moment alone, a week of watching his soulmate’s increasingly frantic messages trace their way up and down his arm. He finally tucked himself away in a corner of the garden one evening to “draw”, and he managed to write a quick “Sorry” to Marinette before he tugged his sleeve back down, wary of being caught. Then he sat there doodling for another two hours, uninterrupted.

Over the next few days, Damian tested the boundaries and figured out that he could “draw” undisturbed for a few hours any afternoon, so long as Alfred could see him from the Manor. When he faced away from the windows, this provided the perfect cover for him to write to his soulmate, and over the course of the next few days, he was able to reassure Marinette that he was fine. 

By the end of the month, Damian had fallen into a holding pattern. He had no idea how long he was going to be stuck in Gotham, and there was no point carving out space for himself if he would be leaving in the next few months. Instead, he kept mostly to himself, practicing his languages with the books he found in the Manor library and trying to keep his combat skills sharp without tipping too much of his hand. He avoided his Father’s wards whenever possible, only conversing with them when breakfasts and dinners necessitated it.

**_[Damian is used to thinking of things in terms of League hierarchies, and he was pretty much the prince of the League, so he’s used to thinking of almost everyone as lower-importance secondary characters. The Bats, on the other hand, see a traumatized little kid, and so they are giving him as much space as they can while still monitoring him.]_ **

It was at one such breakfast that Damian’s life was turned on its head once more. As he sat down at the table, the chair caught his sleeve and pulled in up, exposing his arm. Unfortunately, Marinette was writing something at that exact moment, and the dark lettering appearing on his arm was hard to miss. Across the table, Tim inhaled sharply, and Damian quickly tugged his sleeve back down, trying to ignore the sudden tension. His Father opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Alfred walked up behind Damian and handed him a marker.

“It is awfully impolite to leave one’s soulmate waiting, Master Damian; I’m sure you can spare a moment to reply before you begin eating.”

**_[Tim was shocked to see evidence of soulmate communication, since several encounters with Ra’s had shown pretty clearly what the League’s position on soulmates was. Either Damian had been secretly communicating with his soulmate through the years, or else he had a particularly persistent soulmate. The fear that Tim saw in Damian’s eyes suggested the former.]_ **

Damian eyed the marker for a long moment, then slowly rolled up his sleeve. He quickly read Marinette’s message, and jotted down a reply, setting down the marker but not rolling his sleeve back up. When Marinette wrote back a moment later, Damian glanced at his Father, who was still watching him, and then picked up the marker and wrote a second reply. 

Damian spent the whole breakfast waiting for a lecture, either on how soulmates were a weakness, or on how they required proper cultivation, but neither topic seemed forthcoming. Dick made one or two comments about “pinging” his soulmate, and then the conversation moved on, returning to the same topics as any other morning. 

**_[I imagine that Dick’s soulmate is Barbara Gordon. They dated for a while, before deciding they were better as platonic soulmates, and now the two of them have joined forced to take the Gotham and Bludhaven police departments by storm. Dick is a detective in Bludhaven, and Barbara is a senior detective in Gotham, and so they can coordinate on cases. (Also, I know that several Maribat fics have used Marinette’s powers to cure Barbara, but I won’t be going that route because in my brain this is set in a great universe where being in a wheelchair isn’t the end of the world, and Barbara can still function just as well, if not better, as Oracle than she did as Batgirl) …ok maybe I have a few opinions about how us disabled people are treated in media]_ **

And, that, it seemed, was the end of that conversation. No one brought up Damian’s soulmate again, even when he started leaving his sleeves rolled up and writing to her throughout the day. Marinette, at least, seemed delighted that Damian was writing more, and the two held more conversations than ever. It was nice to have someone to talk to; Marinette gave him lots of advice on how to talk to the Waynes and helped ease some of the loneliness of living in an unfamiliar place.

And so life continued, until the day that Damian realized he had been in Gotham for more than three months. In all that time, Talia had never contacted him, and so it was likely that he was stuck in Gotham for the foreseeable future. It was clearly up to him to make a place for himself here, and the best way to do that was to prove himself to Batman.

As luck would have it, it was Robin’s turn to stay home from patrol that night. When Tim got sidetracked into the details of the latest case, Damian snuck off down to the Batcave. Although the current Robin suit was too large for him, there was one far in the back of the armory that fit, so he quickly donned it. He grabbed a pair of katanas and a motorscooter and headed out to prove himself.

Damian made it into the city without a problem and headed for the area that looked the shadiest. He’d heard Dick refer to it as “Crime Alley”, and that seemed as good a place as any to see how his skills lent themselves to vigilantism. As he turned into the street, however, a speaker on the bike crackled to life, and a woman’s voice sounded out.

“Robin, I don’t know what lead you are following, but be careful if you’re headed down by 43rd, there’s a drug runner’s warehouse that B and Nightwing are going to bust later tonight. B’s got a bead on the kingpin, and is tracking him north. And put your comm in, dumbass, you know the rules.”

**_[Oracle and the Batgirls came back from their space mission about a month and a half after Damian arrived in Gotham. Steph and Cass took off almost immediately to deal with some crisis in Star City, and as such haven’t been around the Manor. Barbara has been around Gotham running overwatch, but Dick warned her about Damian, and how everything has been kind of tense, so she hasn’t stopped by the Manor. As such, when she sees the tracker for the Batscooter moving about, she assumes that it’s Robin, and chides him accordingly.]_ **

Damian skidded the scooter to a stop, and shut it off in a hurry. He didn’t know who that woman was, but he wasn’t going to stick around and let her keep him from showing Batman that he deserved to be Robin. He hid the scooter in a nook between buildings and ran off towards 43rd. Dispatching drug runners sounded like the perfect way to prove himself.

When he arrived at the warehouse, he scaled the fire escape and dropped in through an upper floor window. Damian made his way out towards the center of the warehouse, quickly dispatching the two goons he encountered, but before he could track down where the drugs were being kept, a dark shadow fell over him. Damian whirled around, blades ready, but relaxed his guard when he recognized Batman. This proved to be a poor choice, though, because it gave Nightwing the opening he needed to spring down from the rafters, and with a quick blow to the back of his neck, Damian lost consciousness.

**[Damian: I am a mastermind at planning, no one can out-think me**

**Damian, when someone sees through the machinations of a literal 10-year-old: Surprised Pikachu]**

Damian woke up lying down on an unfamiliar surface. When he opened his eyes, he saw the stalactites of the Batcave for mere moments before his Father loomed over him, face tight with anger. Damian winced backward, but there was nowhere to go.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?” his Father roared.

Damian flinched, hard. It was fine, he thought, because Father clearly didn’t notice, caught up in his rage. Before he could say anything else though, Nightwing pulled his Father back, whispering in his ear. Father took a deep breath and stepped away; Nightwing walked back to Damian and helped him sit up.

**_[Bruce might not notice that his shouting scared Damian, but Dick definitely did. Dick has been cataloging all the little tics that Damian picked up from his time with the League, and has drawn some pretty unfavorable conclusions about the way the “demon prince” was treated.]_ **

“So it seems like you left a few skills out when you told us what the League taught you, huh.”

Internally, Damian breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, this was why his Father was angry; keeping secrets from Ra’s was one of the worst infractions in the League. It made sense that his Father felt similarly. If Damian was going to join his Father’s crusade, he could no longer hide his skills.

So Damian nodded slowly and then began a full debriefing of the things that he had learned from the League. He grew more confident as his list went on; he was skilled in his craft and would be a much better partner than these random orphans that his Father had picked up. Throughout his recitation, Nightwing stared at him, expression unreadable under his cowl. His Father’s response was equally obscured; the shadows of the cave cloaked any emotion.

When Damian finished describing all his skills, he swung himself off the medical cot and stood ready to face whatever punishment his Father deemed appropriate. Nightwing looked over at his Father, and some silent communication passed between the two vigilantes. Tension hung in the air for a long moment, and then his Father stepped forward, out of the shadow.

“It is late, and you ought to be in bed. Go to your room for tonight, and tomorrow we will discuss what to do.”

**_[Batman and Nightwing then spend the next few hours arguing about what to do. Batman’s stance is that killing is never acceptable, but Nightwing manages to persuade him that Damian didn’t know any better, due to being raised by assassins. Batman is certainly not happy about it, but he agrees to give Damian another chance.]_ **

Damian knew better than to argue. He stopped by the armory to replace the Robin outfit, and then quickly left the Batcave, trying to ignore the whispered argument that he could hear behind him. In his bedroom, he wrote out a quick note to Marinette and told her he was likely to be busy for the next few days, so she would not worry if he did not respond to her. Then he laid down in bed and tried to sleep, dozing fitfully the whole night.

The next morning, breakfast was quiet and tense. No one spoke, though his Father’s wards communicated back and forth via glance. Once everyone finished and Dick and Tim had left, Damians Father stood up slowly and instructed Damian to follow him as he headed down to the Batcave.

Down in the Batcave, Damian watched as his Father stalked over to a large computer and then returned, donning his cowl. In his hands were two folders and a domino mask, which he handed over to Damian. Damian slipped the mask on, and started opening the first folder, but was stopped when his Father’s voice rang out.

“Murder,” his Father said, in the deep gravelly tones of Batman, “is never acceptable. When you kill a man you not only take away what they were, but all they will ever be. You take them away from their family, from their friends, and you give them no chance to change.”

Damian nodded slowly, since his Father was clearly expecting a response.

“In those files is everything about the two men that you killed last night. Since you took away everything they could be, you are going to learn everything you can about who they were, and you are going to remember that they were people, just as important as you are.”

Damian nodded again. He didn’t really understand the point of the punishment, but it was far more tolerable than anything Ra’s had ever devised. Damian’s Father looked at him for a long moment and then walked away, returning to the Batcomputer. Damian sat down in a corner of the Batcave, and opened the first file.

For the rest of the day, Damian read and reread the files, trying to figure out what his Father wanted. By the time the vigilantes left for their nightly patrol, Damian thought he had it figured out. The two men he had killed were both the major source of income for their families, and now that they were dead the families would have a hard time staying afloat. When he showed his Father (who had stayed behind in the cave while Nightwing and Robin patrolled), Batman gave him a long look and then slowly nodded.

**_[Damian: I have connected the dots_ **

**_Batman: You haven’t connected shit_ **

**_Damian: I’ve connected them]_ **

“Tomorrow, we will start working on your self-control in combat. When you can take out combatants consistently without lethal force, we will revisit the possibility of you joining patrols. Until then, do not come down to the cave without Nightwing, Robin, or myself.”

For the next few months, Damian spent his evenings training in the Batcave. Sometimes his Father would spar with him, showing him non-lethal strikes and reorienting his immediate reflexes. Other times, Nightwing would show him acrobatics that could be used to evade an opponent almost indefinitely, or Robin would show him how to spot an attacker’s weakest points, disabling them without harm. Even Black Bat and Batgirl took the time to give him some tips when they stopped in Gotham in between missions.

The increased attention was not limited to the evenings, either. Damian’s Father took a greater interest in what Damian did during the day and acquired homeschooling materials to help Damian catch up to his peers (Although Damian was advanced in subjects such as politics and anatomy, he was behind in others like literature and math). Dick and Tim started trying to spend more time with Damian, who, after taking a few suggestions from his soulmate, found their presence almost tolerable. As time passed, Damian found himself becoming a part of the family, instead of just a temporary resident of the Manor.

**_[Also known as, the two paragraphs I wrote of Damian learning how to be a real boy. Basically Marinette prods him into socializing with his brothers, and disagrees with him whenever he gets too snooty about things, and he gradully unlearns all the terriblly unsocial things that he had picked up in the League. He’s by no means perfect, and he’s still a snotty little Demon Brat, but he’s at least open to giving people a chance, and is starting to consider the Bats his family]_ **

When Batman finally cleared Damian to join in patrols, about nine months after Damian had arrived in Gotham, Damian and Tim worked together to design his costume. (Dick was unanimously banned from helping due to his non-existent fashion sense) Tim decided to redesign his costume too, becoming Red Robin and handing the Robin title off to Damian. Damian kept most of the traditional Robin look, but made sure that his arms and legs were fully covered; Marinette liked to doodle and it wouldn’t do for soulmate marks to give away his identity. Damian also made sure that his gear included a katana - even in non-lethal combat, it was his best weapon.

It did not take long for Gotham to adapt to her new superhero. Robin toys started sporting little katanas, and the residents grew used to seeing the new boy wonder arching through the sky behind Nightwing (It was quickly determined that Robin patrolling with Batman would devolve into lectures every time.)

**_[I refuse to kill off Batman, because I can’t make the timeline fit properly, and I hate the battle for the cowl. But I also love the Dick-Damian partnership, so I compromised by having Damian primarily patrol with Nightwing, since his methods are a little too close to the line for Batman]_ **

And Damian had never felt as free as he did when soaring through the night sky. With Marinette’s encouragement, he spent more time with Dick and Tim, and grew to see them as brothers, instead of competition. He began to see himself as a Wayne, not an Al Ghul, as a bat instead of an assassin.

But just as Damian had finally fallen into a comfortable pattern, his life changed yet again. He was swinging back through Crime Alley, heading for the Manor, when an unusual shadow caught his eye. He paused, just long enough for him to identify the shadow as his mother’s protege, Jason Todd. In moments, the shadow had vanished from sight, and Damian continued back to the manor, conflicted. On the one hand, there was no telling if Todd remembered that he had once been Robin; he had likely been sent by Talia to retrieve Damian, and Damian had no intention of leaving Gotham. On the other hand, Damian had seen the memorial in the Batcave and had heard some of Bruce’s stories about Jason; his Father would certainly want to know that Todd was alive.

So Damian fell back on the thing he always did when he didn’t know how to handle people; he wrote to Marinette. He obfuscated some of the details, presenting Todd as his Father’s estranged ward rather than … an undead assassin vigilante. Marinette, with her excellent people skills, came back with an answer almost immediately. She suggested that Damian should talk to Todd first, and see how he felt about being reunited with his Father.

**_[Look, I’ll be honest, Marinette’s got the one brain cell in this relationship, mainly because she has a loving and supportive family, instead of a dysfunctional bunch of superheroes.]_ **

With that advice, Damian set out the next night, prepared. As Robin, he volunteered to patrol Crime Alley, and he muted his comm so no one could hear anything that he might say. He found a perch, on top of one of Gotham’s myriad gargoyles, where he was hidden from the street. And there he waited, alert and ready. 

An hour in, Robin spotted his mother’s protege, sliding through the shadows. Robin waited for just the right moment, and then lept, falling out of the sky onto Todd. He landed on Todd’s shoulders and, before Todd had a chance to react, disarmed him in moments. Todd recovered quickly and threw Robin off, but Robin flipped over in midair, landing lightly on his feet. 

Robin took a deep breath, and, in his best Demon Prince voice, mimicked his mother’s favorite command: “Stand down.”

Todd faltered, and looked at Robin for a long moment before he spoke. “Damian?”

Robin nodded, imperiously. Todd took off his helmet, and silence hung in the air. Then Todd grimaced, his voice full of weary resignation.

“I see Bruce wasted no time in tossing the Replacement aside for his  **_real_ ** son. Ha. Talia sent me to keep an eye on you, but it looks like you’re doing just fine restoring your  _ birthright _ on your own. Well fine, that frees me up to get the justice  _ I _ deserve. Go home, demon spawn, I’m sure B is worried about his  _ actual _ son, and I don’t need him snooping up in  _ my _ business.” 

**_[Jason remembered being Robin a little while into his stay with the League of Assassins, but a) he did kind of owe Talia for dunking him in the Pit to keep him alive, b) he could learn a bunch of cool tricks from the League, and c) he wanted to keep an eye on Bruce’s kid to make sure that Damian was safe. This doesn’t keep the old trama of not-good-enough-street-trash from bubbling to the surface when Bruce takes a new Robin]_ **

Todd turned and headed away, and Robin had to make a split-second decision. With the amount of vitriol in Todd’s voice, it was pretty clear that he remembered his time as Robin, and that there were more than a few issues left unresolved. From the files Taila had given him, Robin could make a pretty good guess as to what justice Todd was looking for, and he was pretty sure that Batman would not approve.

And so Robin didn’t turn away, didn’t head back to his patrol route or to the Manor. Instead, he followed Todd, making no effort to conceal himself. When Todd snarled at him, Robin simply raised his eyebrows and kept following. Todd tried to rebuff him a couple more times, but Robin persisted, following Todd without saying anything. Eventually, Todd gave up on dissuading Robin and simply ignored him, continuing around Crime Alley. Unfortunately, Robin eventually had to head back to the Manor so Batman did not get suspicious, but he managed to tag Todd with a tracker or two before he left.

For the next few weeks, Damian got very little patrolling done. Every night that he was out, he tracked down Todd and followed him around Crime Alley. Todd talked to the residents of the Alley each night, the homeless and the street kids and the working women. (Many of them froze up, initially, when they spotted Robin, but when Todd waved off their concerns they relaxed again) After the first few nights, he also started talking at Robin, relaying stories about his childhood in the Alley, or telling him about the residents. Despite Damian’s silence, or perhaps because of it, Todd became more talkative as time went on. And eventually, he told Damian a story of his time as Robin, longing clear in his voice.

For Damian, that story was clear proof that Todd wanted to be reunited with Damian’s Father. So the next night, as he followed Todd around he unmuted his comm and turned the reception way up so that any sounds in his nearby environment would get picked up. When Todd started on his next anecdote, (some story about stealing Batman’s tires, how absurd) a sharp gasp sounded over the comm. 

**_[Nightwing was the gasp that sounded over the comms; Batman and Red Robin were also shocked, but were careful to stay quiet so they didn’t miss anything]_ **

Moments later, a shadow fell over them as they walked down Crime Alley. Todd paused, and looked up, just in time for Nightwing to tumble out of the sky. Todd tensed as if to flee, but before he could move, Nightwing spoke.

“Little Wing?”

And with those two words, all the tension drained out of Todd’s stance. Robin took a step back, rolling his eyes as Nightwing and Todd reunited. They were going to be insufferably emotional for the foreseeable future, so Robin unleashed his grappling hook and swung back to the Batcave. Luckily, both Batman and Red Robin were also out patrolling (though that may have been abandoned in favor of heading to Crime Alley), so Damian was able to slip back into the Manor without being accosted. He headed for his bedroom, pleased with his success. When Bruce ducked his head into the room an hour or so later, Damian feigned sleep, but the whispered, heartfelt “Thanks” made his heart glow with pride.

Over the next few years, Jason slid almost seamlessly into life at the Manor. There were problems, of course; the aftereffects of the Lazurus Pit had made Jason far more aggressive than before his death, and Batman did not always approve of his more violent tactics. (Damian and Jason often commiserated after Bruce had chewed one or the other of them out for “inappropriate combat”) And, especially in the beginning, there were piles of unspoken worries about not being wanted, from every one of the Waynes. But tensions eased, and everyone found a comfortable routine soon enough.

**_[Jason’s still a bit upset about the fact that the Joker is alive, but he does have Damian to commiserate with about violent tactics and revenge, so he never goes off and becomes a crime lord. He does take up the mantle of Red Hood (mostly because I couldn’t think of a good way to give him a new superhero identity without diverting this fic further), but that’s more of a way to thumb his nose at the Joker, a way of saying “here’s one more thing im stealing from you and making better”. Red Hood still carries his signature guns, but they fire rubber bullets, not lead.]_ **

With five members of the Batfamily rotating through patrol, Damian had a lot more downtime. He spent more time on his art, and even found himself doodling to Marinette on his arms. He raced through his homeschooling lessons, and in two years he had caught up to his peers. He trained with the Teen Titans for a while (his Father insisted that “proper socialization” was important), and exchanged stories about his friends with Marinette. 

But as Damian became a teenager, his Father started pushing him to have a life outside of his superheroics. His Father insisted that he needed civilian friends, and that no, his soulmate did not count. And so, the summer before his 14th birthday, Damian’s Father signed set Damian up to attend Gotham Academy the upcoming fall. With only a week’s warning before school started, he spent the night fuming, and whining to his soulmate about starting school. (She seemed to think he was excited for school, though, and was excited for him. He was loath to dissuade her from that thought because she had been feeling down lately.) 

**_[Conveying tone over sentences written on arms is super hard, especially when you are an ex-assassin child who wouldn’t know a meme if it bit them in the face]_ **

Once he started school, though, it wasn’t too bad; the teachers were interesting and the material was engaging. His classmates were plebeian, of course, but no one said he had to associate with them. Instead, he spent most of his time in the art room drawing; the art teacher let him draw whatever he liked for as long as he wanted, as long as he wasn’t skipping class.

Throughout the first week of school, Damian was too overwhelmed by all the newness to write to Marinette too much. He also didn’t notice that her messages had gotten less frequent, or that they were stilted like she was holding back something. On Saturday, though, he made sure to check his arms the instant he woke up, and was taken aback when he read the words scrawled down his arm.

**_Would you tell me your name? There’s a new boy in my class, and you said you were starting school this week, and, well, I just want to make sure._ **

Damian’s breath caught in his throat. They had been writing to each other for so long that Damian had forgotten that Marinette did not know his name, or where he lived. For a moment, he was caught up in the idea that his soulmate could be at Gotham Academy, that he could meet her in person. But then reality reasserted itself; Marinette lived in Paris, not Gotham, so there was no way he could be in her class. 

But even though he did not want Marinette thinking some random boy was her soulmate, he wasn’t sure if he should tell her his name. The Wanye’s were a high-profile family, even internationally, and he didn’t want Marinette to treat him differently once she knew. And more than that, even being tangentially connected to the Waynes was dangerous - Gotham’s villains loved to target his family, and being overseas was not necessarily a guarantee of safety, as Jason’s death proved.

With some thought, Damian came to a compromise. He told Marinette his first name; it was uncommon, so it was unlikely that Marinette’s new classmate shared it, but common enough that the first thought wouldn’t be a billionaire's son from across the ocean. To his relief, Marinette quickly wrote back, reassuring him that she thought it was a coincidence, but that it would be silly not to check. 

Damian and Marinette kept writing back and forth for hours, catching each other up on their first week of school. As they went down the list of interesting things that had happened, Marinette eventually mentioned that, during the first day of school, Paris was attacked by a supervillain named Hawkmoth. When Damian expressed concern for her safety, she informed him that Paris had also gained two heroes that had thwarted Hawkmoth: a red-clad heroine named Ladybug, and a black-clad hero named Chat Noir. And though Marinette quickly moved the conversation on to other topics, Damian could tell that she was leaving something out.

That night, before patrol, Damian did some research on the Batcomputer. He found one website dedicated to Paris’ new hero: the Ladyblog. He read everything he could about Ladybug and Chat Noir, and about Hawkmoth. For now, it looked like Marinette was right, that Ladybug and Chat were keeping Paris safe. Nonetheless, Damian set up alerts on his phone, so that he would always know when the superheroes were active. Sure, there had only been one attack so far, but in Damian’s experience, villains never stopped at one attack. 

**_[Damian: Marinette is a Civilian, she could be In Danger!!!!_ **

**_Me: *looks at the camera like I’m on The Office*]_ **

Over the next few months, Damian’s phone pinged again and again, alerting him to attack after attack. But he couldn’t focus too much attention to it; Gotham’s rogues had been plotting again, and it was all hands on deck trying to unravel whatever they had planned before they wreaked havoc on the city. Damian barely had enough time to check in with Marinette after each attack, to make sure she was safe. And luckily, she always was, no matter how many times an akuma targeted her class. 

Whenever he had free time, Damian wrote Marinette tips that the citizens of Gotham used to deal with the frequent villain attacks. Although some of them were probably less helpful than others, given the ever-changing nature of Paris’ villains, he still felt better with the idea that Marinette had at least some protection, even if it was just knowledge. 

By the time that Gotham’s rogues had been dealt with, the Parisian superheroes were firmly established. The Justice League reached out to Paris, once, to provide help, but they were rebuffed by both the French government and Paris’ mayor. So Damian had to watch, unable to help, as month of akuma attacks turned into one year, and then another. And akuma attacks were not the only danger he worried about in those two years; Marinette seemed to be more and more stressed as time went on - more and more responsibilities fell on her shoulders, and her classmates began alienating her.

And so Damian made a promise to himself, as the second anniversary of Hawkmoth’s appearance drew near. If Ladybug and her widening circle of heroes hadn’t defeated Hawkmoth before the school year started up, he would do whatever it took to make sure that Marinette was safe, even if that meant that he had to go to Paris himself.

**_[Also, an additional memey scene that I had originally written for this chapter, but got cut when I changed how Damian confronted Batman for the first time:_ **

**_Random dark-haired child that no one has ever seen, appearing at the front desk of WE: Take me to see Bruce Wayne, I need to speak with my Father._ **

**_WE employee: … Yeah ok, that checks out]_ **

  
  



End file.
